After comforting Neptune and his family, Michael returned to the frontlines.
But to his surprise, the battle had already ended early.
"That Ryokugyu... what a cunning bastard!" Yamato said indignantly. "He's so strong, so why didn't he fight us with everything he had?"
"Probably because he's not an idiot," Jack wiped the blood from his lips. "Even though he was stronger than we expected, facing the combined attacks of the six of us, his only path was defeat. So of course, he chose to flee."
"But didn't he have allies trying to kidnap Princess Shirahoshi? Why didn't he go back to save them?"
"Yamato, they're scum who wouldn't hesitate to harm even ordinary people," Ginny walked over to Yamato, speaking with a tone of earnestness. "Don't imagine them as honorable or righteous figures. Not every strong person in the world is like Shiki or Kaido, willing to fight Michael to their last breath even when they know they can't win."
Yamato opened her mouth but couldn't find the words to respond.
This was one of Yamato's flaws...
He had been protected too well by Michael.
Though he had fought many strong opponents, his understanding of the world was still too idealistic.
Michael rubbed his forehead mid-air.
This was his mistake.It seems that sending Yamato back to the junior training program is absolutely necessary.
In contrast, although Jack's combat prowess and talent pale in comparison to Yamato's, he has a much clearer grasp of the boundary between ideals and reality.
With this thought, Michael slowly descended from midair.
"Ryokugyu escaped?"
"Correct. He's no ordinary opponent... Even if we could barely defeat him, he'd likely take at least two of us down with him," Kuma frowned, his tone tinged with wariness. "And if this weren't Fishman Island but somewhere else, the casualties might have been even higher... The Logia-type Forest-Forest Fruit is formidable."
Ryokugyu's escape was within Michael's expectations.
After all, while the Regional Justice Faction was willing to fight to the death for the World Government and Celestial Dragons, they still had to weigh the circumstances.
For a mission where success or failure made little difference, losing a top-tier Admiral-level combatant would be utterly unacceptable.
What surprised him was how quickly Ryokugyu fled.
He'd assumed the Admiral would at least put up a fight long enough to showcase his power before retreating...
But Michael quickly understood.
He hadn't concealed his presence throughout—Ryokugyu must have sensed him... In that case, fleeing was only natural.
"Michael! I swear I'll kill that Ryokugyu bastard myself! He dared say that both Kuma and I were destined to be slaves for the Celestial Dragons! That someone like Kuma, a descendant of sinners, should be grateful to even be a slave..." Ginny's eyes welled up with tears the moment she saw Michael, like a child running to tattle to an adult.
"No one gets to insult Kuma like that in front of me!"
"Hey Ginny, your old boss lady attitude from the Sorbet Kingdom days is showing again."
"I've always been like this!" Ginny fumed, flames spurting from her nostrils. "But that Ryokugyu guy had some 'Fireproof Forest' technique—my flames couldn't fully threaten him!"
"As you said, Ginny—they couldn't 'fully' threaten him, not that they couldn't threaten him at all," Michael observed the flames erupting from Ginny. "Whether it's your mastery of the Flame-Flame Fruit or your technique development, you've reached an impressive level—on par with someone like Crocodile, who obsesses over maximizing Logia abilities... But you've overlooked one thing."
"What did I overlook?"
"The development of the element itself," Michael smiled. "You know the Flame-Flame Fruit controls fire... but do you know temperatures can vary drastically between flames?"
"I... actually didn't know that," Ginny scratched her head. "Isn't fire just fire?"
The instant those words left Ginny's mouth, Michael's expression darkened.
With a strained smile, he said:
"My dear Miss Ginny, if I recall correctly, your last officer exam scores were decent, yes? Though a bit lopsided—natural sciences and math mostly hovered below thirty..."
"The temperature of fire was included in the compulsory natural science curriculum!"
"If you'd just read a few more books, you'd have known this property!"Ginny was quite a bit older than Michael, but she had always been a fiery and impulsive girl at heart, a temperament that hadn't changed for years.
It was only after giving birth to Bonney that she mellowed slightly.
So when Michael started lecturing her, she couldn't help but feel the helplessness of being scolded by an elder.
"Ahem, ahem! I get it, I'll study properly!" Ginny coughed a few times to mask her embarrassment before hastily changing the subject. "So, does this mean I should shift my focus in developing my Devil Fruit abilities toward increasing the temperature of my flames?"
"That's the general idea. Once your flames reach a temperature high enough to surpass the critical point of a firebreak, you'll re-establish a counteractive relationship with him." Michael shook his head.
"But I'm not a Logia user, so I don't know how to develop your fruit to increase flame temperature. That's something you'll have to figure out on your own."
"Wait, that can't be right. I remember your Holy Flames... don't they often reduce people to ashes?"
"My flames are naturally like that..."
"Ugh... the well-fed don't know how the starving suffer!"
Michael ignored Ginny's dramatic outburst and turned his attention to Kuma.
Even his usually gentle brow was shadowed with concern.
Michael sighed.
As expected, despite Kuma's current happiness with his family and steady career growth, the death of his father and the Bucaneer race's inherent "sinner" status remained dark clouds over his childhood.
"The Bucaneer race—one of the mixed-blood descendants of giants, most likely a hybrid between giants and humans..."
"Kuma, believe me, the Bucaneer people were never 'born sinners.' This was just the World Government's oppression and enslavement of the defeated when it was first established."
"No one is born guilty." Kuma said nothing, only nodding at Michael in acknowledgment.
Michael knew these matters were difficult to discuss.
The so-called "born sinners" were simply the main defeated races of the ancient Great Kingdom...
In other words, this was the price of victory and defeat.
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